


wonderwall

by dollphase



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Father-Son Relationship, Lyall Lupin POV, Lyall Lupin and Remus have a rocky relationship, Remus Lupin Needs a Hug, Strained Relationships, Welsh Remus Lupin, pure angst, remus running from his emotions for over 30 years, with wolfstar ofc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:33:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29706186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollphase/pseuds/dollphase
Summary: "For the first two years after Remus first got bitten, Lyall couldn’t look his son in the face. Whenever he met his son’s warm amber eyes, he couldn’t help but see the clouded pain hidden behind the pools of molten honey and he’d be sourly reminded of his shortcomings as a father."Lyall Lupin's POV on watching Remus grow up. Starting with that pesky Welsh bogart, ending with Teddy Lupin, and every painful memory in between.
Relationships: Hope Lupin/Lyall Lupin, Lyall Lupin & Remus Lupin, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 8
Kudos: 24





	wonderwall

**Author's Note:**

> _There are many things that I  
>  Would like to say to you but I don't know how  
> Because maybe  
> You're gonna be the one that saves me  
> And after all  
> You're my wonderwall_
> 
> Wonderwall- "an imaginary friend who's gonna come and save you from yourself"
> 
> **TW: mentions of drug use, mentions of suicidal thoughts, addiction, and character death**

He was supposed to be Lyall’s boy. He was supposed to learn how to fly on a training broom that Lyall had been having up for his fifth birthday. Lyall would hold his hand as he mounted a broom for the first time in his life and keep a hawk’s eye on him while he flew around the kitchen. He was supposed to come home from muggle school and rant to Lyall about how ready he was to attend Hogwarts, to enter a world of magic. Lyall would smile knowingly at his son and tell him, ‘soon, wait a few more years’. He was supposed to return for the summer from Hogwarts and boast of all the friends he made and magic he’d learn at school. Lyall would ask about old Professors and ask about girls. There was a lot he was supposed to do, supposed to be, but never did.

Werewolves were disgusting creatures. They lurked in the darkness and mindlessly attacked innocent humans. They had no regard for human life and therefore Lyall Lupin has no regard for theirs. In fact, he despised Werewolves. They were deceitful and untrustworthy. They attacked and killed viciously. Some may argue that Werewolves were human for 27 days and only wolf for one night, but Lyall Lupin knew the truth. They were mere shells of humans, any humanity left in them decaying as the urges to hunt and kill took over.

Lyall had decided to study Werewolves because of his last name, funnily enough. ‘Lupin’ had wolf connotations, as one of his teenage friends kindly pointed out. His friends at Hogwarts thought it would be a great laugh if Lyall went into the Werewolf Registry and Lyall did too. Names always meant an awful lot to Lyall, and in a way, he felt as if he were destined to work with the half-breeds. He was destined to put them in their place.

Lyall met Hope in Wales after she had encountered a bogart. She thought he was such a brave man for such a long time, and quite truthfully Lyall hadn’t had it in him to tell her otherwise. Maybe that made him even more of a coward… There was a reason he was a Ravenclaw and not a Gryffindor, after all.

They got married after a year of dating. Lyall noticed Hope growing big around the belly and getting bouts of awful sickness and decided it was time to pop the question before anyone noticed. Hope’s family were some of the strictest Christians Lyall had ever met (not that he had met many, being a wizard and all that) and he was not keen on explaining his girlfriend’s sudden weight gain to them. So they had a small wedding in a church before celebrating on Hope’s family’s farm. Hope had a small glass of champagne to avoid suspicion and nine-ish (it was really seven, but Hope’s family weren’t too good with counting) months later Remus John Lupin was born.

Hope had loved the idea of having a seer pick out a name for their child and Lyall agreed to it. Names were important, after all. So a young woman with wild blonde hair and large blue eyes was present at Remus’s birth, thoroughly out of place at the muggle hospital. She touched baby Remus’s palms for just three seconds before flinching. Her blue eyes clouded up and she frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Hope asked in her thick accent. The seer woman didn’t say anything, she just frowned. After a few suspenseful minutes, she began to nibble on her lips nervously. Lyall briefly wondered if she had seen some terrible vision and was debating on telling the parents or not. But then he shook that silly thought out of his head. His child was going to be well-taken care of. Nothing was going to hurt Lyall Lupin’s child, he’d make sure of it.

“Remus. That is the name that I keep seeing”, she said in a wisp-like voice. 

Hope nodded. “Remus John Lupin it is”, she said with the biggest smile in the world. Lyall tried to capture the image of his smiling wife in his head, her bright blue eyes and wide toothy smile. She was beautiful.

***  
He was almost five when it happened. It was no secrete that Lyall had a bit of a temper on him, he could say despicable things when riled up. But even when he was angered, Lyall Lupin always spoke what was on his mind. And he truly meant what he said in that courtroom. He meant every single thing he said and it would haunt him forever. Because of what he said that day, Remus John Lupin would never be his boy again

He had wanted to throw him out the night it happened. Lyall Lupin was no dullest, but in a fight to save his son’s life, he had blasted spells he hadn’t successfully performed even after years of practice. The Werewolf had cowered away after three stunning spells. Maybe the animal was wise enough to know it was a losing battle. He fled through the window he came in from and Lyall stood in the doorway, staring at his son dumbly. He had fought off a full-grown murderous Werewolf with lighting fast reflexes, but he couldn’t rush to his bleeding son’s side.

Hope was already there. Lyall had been blocking her from stupidly running up their son’s attacker but the second the wolf left he let her in. She hunched over a crying Remus and held him in her arms. 

“Do something!” She screamed, tears forming in her own eyes. Hope looked up at her husband with blazing eyes that were almost more frightening than the Werewolf that had been in the room not two minutes ago. 

“What do you want me to do?” Lyall asked. His son was bitten. He was bitten. He was going to turn into one of those filthy creatures.

“I don’t know. You’re the one with the wand, aren’t you?” She spat. 

Lyall rushed over to Remus’s side and drew out his wand, tracing Remus’s wounds with it. Remus only cried louder as his wounds healed, flailing around in a pool of his own blood. Hope stroked his hair while also crying. 

“We’ve got to take him somewhere”, Hope said after Lyall healed up what he could, which wasn’t much. Remus was still losing blood through the bite marks on his thigh. Lyall knew all about Werewolf bites and he knew that they could only be seamed with special magical medical care, potions and spells that Lyall did not have or could do. The only option for his son’s survival would be to take him to St Mungo’s, which Lyall knew would only stir the pot. He knew a great deal of Healers there and they’d be sure to talk. Everyone would know that Lyall Lupin’s son was an animal. 

“Hope, we can’t. It’s too dangerous. People will talk. He’s gonna be a Werewolf-”

“I don’t care! I don’t care, Lyall!”, Hope yelled, her voice tethered and shaking over Remus’s sobs.

Lyall ended up apparating them to St Mungo’s. By the morning light, Remus had been all patched up and ready to go home, although the Healers warned them about the dangers of their son.

“He’s no longer your son first, he’s a Werewolf before anything”, a young woman about Hope’s age said.

“He’ll always be my son before anything else”, Hope bit. The young Healer did nothing but shake her head and click her tongue in a way Lyall knew meant ‘foolish muggle’. 

When they went home, Hope set Remus down onto the bed in the guest room before coming out and setting a pot of coffee. Normally Lyall hated coffee as it made him jittery, but as he’d only gotten two hours of sleep, dulled a Werewolf, and watched his son become a Werewolf all in one night, a nice cup of coffee certainly was in order.

“Hope, we’ve got to talk”, Lyall said. Hope nodded with agreement and set down a mug for him while holding her own. Lyall took his gratefully and sipped greedily at it, clutching the handle of the mug like his life depended on it. Quite truthfully, he could have done with a bit of rum in it.

“Right”, Hope said, rolling her ‘r’. Her Welsh accent always got thicker when she was either drunk, tired, or stressed, and right now she was two of the three.

Lyall took another sip of the coffee and sighed. “Werewolves are… very dangerous”, Lyall trailed, not knowing just how much his wife knew about the nature of the Dark Creatures. Hope always struggled to understand the logistics of the Wizarding World. She was quite smart for someone who had little formal education and spent most of her adolescent years helping her family out around the farm, tending to the chickens, and churning butter. She could read and write pretty good and she was much sharper than her burly brothers who used their fingers the count. And while Hope could plow through novels and knew her times’ tables, she couldn’t wrap her mind around most aspects of the Wizarding World. In a way, Lyall liked that about her. He wasn’t a renowned Dark Creature expert or a blood traitor around Hope. He was simply Lyall Lupin, a man who also shared an interest in thick novels and soft rock music.

But one negative of Hope’s lack of knowledge was that she simply didn’t grasp just how dangerous things could be. To Hope, a killing spell was the equivalent of a gun or a knife, even though both muggle weapons left much chance for survival. A bogart was a spooky mischievous creature and a vampire was a murderous man with afflictions to the sun. And a Werewolf was just a criminal, a victim of circumstances who was forced to transform every month into a beast without a choice. Hope didn’t understand that Werewolves were vile, murderous, and killed even during the other 27 days of the month. He’d seen the packs before and he had studied them. The dens were usually in filthy caves and the Wolves lived in poverty, fighting eachother for scraps of food someone nicked from a grocery store and killing over muggle sedatives. While they may be in a human body for 27 days, they were never quite human.

“We’ve got to get rid of him”, Lyall said hastily. He watched to gauge his wife’s reaction and to his horror, Hope did not scream or yell. Instead, she just sat there and frowned over his mug of coffee.

“You will _not_ get rid of my boy, Lyall Lupin”, she finally said. “I know what you think of Werewolves, that they are dark and vile creatures and I know what you tell me about those dens they live in, how they are filthy and dangerous. I do not want my son to live that life”.

“But Hope”, Lyall interjected. He really didn’t know how to explain to his muggle wife the true horrors that Werewolves were. He could show her pictures of them and maybe read her an expert from one of his books, but he knew that Hope would still hold on to some hope that Remus would not be like that. Remus was not exempt from being a murderous beast simply because he was their son. Maybe she would come to her senses after she saw him transform for the first time. Yes, that would do it.

“I don’t want to hear it, Lyall. Nothing you could say will make me love Remus any less and honestly you should be ashamed of yourself. Remus needs us right now and all you’re thinking of is abandoning him. If you abandon Remus, you abandon me. I will go where ever Remus goes.”

“I know you think less of me because I was born without magic. You don’t say it, but I know and I’ve come to terms with it long ago because it’s the truth. There are many things you can do that I can’t, but let me tell you something, Lyall Lupin”, she set down her mug and gave Lyall a look of utter disgust and contempt that he’d never forget in his life.

“I can and will raise Remus to be the best man he can, with or without you. If you abandon Remus, I will abandon you. And don’t think for one second that I can’t do it. The job at the company pays me well and I’m sure if I can ask around, I can find one of those books you’re always reading about Werewolves. I’ll read everything I can and learn how to properly care for Remus. I don’t care that he’s a Werewolf and neither should you. I don’t give a shite about what that daft doctor said at your magic hospital. Remus is my child, he is my son, he is my _boy_ and nothing will change that.”

Lyall gulped, Hope could get awfully scary when she wanted to be.

“Alright, I’m sorry”, Lyall said, even though he wasn’t. Once Hope saw Remus transform for the first time, she’d be sure to see where Lyall is coming from. Lyall would permit Remus to live with them until the next moon, which was in a week, and once Hope understood just how disgusting and tainted their son now was, they’d find a way to dispose of the boy.

*** 

Remus Lupin was not soulless, evil, nor did he deserve death. Lyall cried the morning after when they first had to lock him up. He stood on the other side of the door listening to his son rip apart his bones and skin to transform into that vile beast. Remus yelled in pain. He begged for his ‘Ma’ and ‘Pa’ but they couldn’t go in. Hope is the first to break down. She sobbed into Lyall’s shoulder and he squeezed her tight, even though she was still extremely angry with him. Remus’s cries for his parents soon became high-pitched howls, furthering Hope’s sobbing. 

It was in the morning when he saw Remus, his son, lying in the torn-up guest room, bloody and bruised, that Lyall shed a tear. He rushed to his son’s side and healed up all of his wounds. 

“Thank you”, Remus said after Lyall healed his cuts and Hope wiped away the blood. He smiled at his parents lopsidedly and Lyall wondered if Remus even knew what had happened. He probably didn’t, he probably thought the previous night was a bad nightmare and his parents had hurried in the room to save the day and wake him from his dreams. 

Lyall’s eyes grew hot as he looked down at his son, who was looking at his parents with childish innocence and admiration through his newly acquired shiner. He was nothing like those beasts Lyall saw at work, who stared at Lyall like he was a piece of meat.

Lyall had to excuse himself from the room. He locked himself in the bathroom and sobbed, gripping the ceramic sink in order to keep himself upright. He’d been wrong. Remus was still his son. It wasn’t Remus who was the disgusting beast, it was Lyall Lupin, for he had considered abandoning his son. His boy.

***

It took a month for Hope to talk to him again after the first full moon. She hadn’t forgiven him for considering throwing their son out, and Lyall couldn't blame her. He hadn’t forgiven himself either.

Hope led the household the first month after Remus’s transformation. She made plans to sell the home in Cardiff and to move to someplace in the Midlands, where her brother had moved to for work, trying to escape the bad memories that now lingered in the home like a ghost. Hope also quit her secretary job at the muggle insurance office and picked up a book about homeschooling from the local bookstore. She doted on Remus, keeping a watchful eye on him and making sure he ate enough. Hope only spoke to Remus in Welsh and Lyall knew it was intentional. She wanted to distance Lyall from Remus.

On the night of Remus’s second full moon, Hope finished packing boxes of old photographs and called for her husband.

“Lyall”, she said, making him snap his head over.

“Yes”, Lyall said, wondering what his wife would say to him. 

“You have spells to do, don’t you? To keep him locked in?”.

Lyall nodded and slid off the stool he was sitting on. “Right, yeah. I’ll go set the guest room up”. He went into the guest room and cast some protection spells. By the time he finished enchanting the entire room to hold in Remus, he had worked up quite a sweat. Lyall turned on his heel to exit the room, only to find five-year-old Remus staring at him with horrified brown eyes and a stuffed bear in hand.

“Pa…”, he croaked. Lyall noticed him clutch his stuffed bear across his chest, hugging the toy tightly. “I’m not…. Not again, right?” he asked.

Lyall felt his throat constrict. Remus didn’t understand… he was so young. Lyall wondered when Remus would be able to grasp that his transformations were to be monthly. He felt himself choke up at the thought.

“I’m sorry, Remus”, was all he said.

Remus started sniffling and left the doorway, rushing to Hope. He buried himself in his mother’s arms and began to sob, murmuring something in Welsh. Lyall debated going up to his distraught son and offering him some words of comfort or a hug or anything that showed he cared. But as soon as he heard Hope talk, her soft voice filling the air with foreign Welsh words, Lyall knew he was no longer needed there. He left the house to go for a very long walk and didn’t return until sunset to hoist Remus into the guest bedroom. He locked the door and cast another protective spell before waiting outside the door, listing to his son’s screams as every limb in his body ripped apart and he transformed into the wolf.

He cried that night too and this time not out of disgust for himself. He cried because hearing your child tear themselves apart and lose control of themself was every parents’ worse nightmare. Hope also waited outside the door, sobbing uncontrollably. Lyall turned to face his wife, tears streaking down both their faces.

“I’m sorry”, he said.

Hope sobbed harder. She stuck her arms out and pulled Lyall into a tight embrace. They were in this together now.

***

They hadn’t expected Remus to attend Hogwarts. Sure, Remus was unregistered, but that didn’t mean that the school had other ways to track Remus down. Dumbledore was the greatest wizard of his time. Of course, he knew exactly what Remus John Lupin was. It was pretty self-explanatory why Remus wouldn’t be attending Hogwarts, so Lyall and Hope made the tough decision to raise Remus as muggle as possible. Remus knew he was a Wizard, of course. But Lyall made sure that Remus knew that he’d never be a part of the Wizarding World. It would be for his own good.

Lyall limited his magic in the house. He only used magic at work, which wasn’t often as he resigned from his position at the Department of Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and decided to take up much simpler, unbiased work at the ministry. Every time he had to interview a Werewolf, he suddenly didn’t see a murderous beast in human form. He now saw a hurt individual who’d been handed the short stick in life one too many times, someone who his son may have turned into if he had followed his impulses and thrown Remus out the night he was bitten. On top of that, Lyall couldn’t bear to hear his co-workers mutter the horrible things they said about Werewolves. It wasn’t anything Lyall hadn’t said before and that’s what made it worse. Lyall Lupin felt guilty. He ruined his boy’s life and was reminded of it every full moon, every time Remus bore a new scar, and every time Remus got another nightmere that left him screaming his lungs out. He wouldn’t tell his parents what they were about but they all knew exactly what Remus was dreaming of. Lyall had ruined Remus’s life.

For the first two years after Remus first got bitten, Lyall couldn’t look his son in the face. Whenever he met his son’s warm amber eyes, he couldn’t help but see the clouded pain hidden behind the pools of molten honey and he’d be sourly reminded of his shortcomings as a father.

***

When Remus was about seven years old, Lyall Lupin got the best idea of his life. He heard about potions being made to sedate giants and regrow human body parts on centars. What if Lyall could make a potion to cure lycanthropy? He rushed to Diagon Alley immediately to pick up books and potion ingredients. He read for hours the week after he bought the books, only stopping to go to work before coming home to sit down and read again.

He scribbled down herb and plant combinations that he thought would work well together and temperatures at which the ingredients would reach their optimal efficiency. He spent weekends sourcing ingredients in Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley alike. He spent late nights brewing potions, ignoring Hope’s worrisome glances, and he spent days plowing through paperwork at the Ministry. 

The first potion Lyall made Remus drink was green and smelt a bit like sewer water. Remus had out-right refused to drink it, even after Lyall had said it might help with his transformations. It was only when Hope came into the room and asked Remus to drink it that he tipped the beaker back and downed the potion. He screwed his face up and pretended to gag. The potion did nothing.

***

By the time Remus was eight, he had stopped crying before and after transformations. He hardly had nightmares anymore and when he did he just turned his bedroom light on and stayed up the rest of the night. He didn’t protest when Lyall brewed experimental potions that smelt like unwashed socks and he drank the contents without a bit of lip. He stopped complaining about not being able to play with the other children and he stopped putting up fights whenever they moved to a new location. He simply existed. It made Lyall extremely sad.

Hope talked Lyall into moving back to Wales. Hope reasoned that the land was cheap (Lyall’s pay had been negatively affected by his job switch and the constant moving and potion brewing chipped away at what little money they did have) and that Remus would do well in Wales. Lyall hadn’t wanted to at first, he figured there were too many bad memories of Remus’s first transformation in Wales. But Hope informed him that they would be moving to the countryside, not Cardiff.

“I never was much of a city girl”, she commented fondly.

Hope managed to find a nice property that sat at the top of a large hill filled with spaced-out homes, sheep, cattle, a few businesses. The town’s population was a mere six-hundred-ninety-two, and everybody seemed to know everybody, including Hope. Lyall later found out that this was Hope’s home town and suddenly everything seemed to click in place. This was the reason why Hope desperately wanted to move back. In a place where there were more cattle than people, it was easy to hide a secret like Remus’s.

Nobody asked questions about why Remus was always banged up or why he didn’t attend school. Half the boys here his age didn’t attend schooling on a regular basis either. There was much work to do on the farms, leaving many young boys to help their families make ends meet instead of getting an education. Nobody questioned Remus’s scars or bruises, most boys here had similar bruises from farm equipment or small-town scuffles.

The house was a bit old and small, but it was comfy and would make do. What the house lacked, the property made up for. They owned a large plot of land about a fifteen-minute walk away from the main part of town on the base of the hill, a windy gravel road connecting the two. They owned enough land that nobody could hear Remus’s howls when he was locked in the cellar. The excess of land also allowed for Remus to go out and wander, something he couldn’t do when they lived in the city or suburbs. Sometimes Lyall would offer to walk around the hilly yard with Hope and they’d hold hands and watch the stars like they did when they first fell in love. Even though Lyall couldn’t understand half of what anybody in the town said and that the town was completely muggle, Lyall found he quite liked living there.

Sometimes Hope would take Remus into town and sometimes, very rarely, Lyall would accompany them. Remus would always beg to go into the bookstore and Lyall would scrap up some exchanged muggle money and buy Remus a book that Lyall thought he would enjoy. Remus would make small talk with the old man who worked there (with Hope nearby to make sure he didn’t let anything peculiar slip) and then they’d go out for lunch at a restaurant. It was a simple and quiet life and Lyall could pretend his family was normal for 27 days and 26 nights.

***

By the time Remus was ten, he had developed a thick Welsh accent to match his mother’s. Remus’s accent had always been a bit ambiguous due to moving around every year or so, but the two years spent in the Welsh countryside had cemented his accent. Lyall was now the oddball in the house with his stiff and proper London accent.

They fell into a nice routine. Lyall would go to work every day and spend the evenings brewing potions or out at the Leaky Cauldron and Hope would stay home to cook and school Remus. Lyall would take weekend trips to Diagon Alley and only sometimes Remus would ask to come with, to see all about this magical world that he would have otherwise been a part of. Lyall pretended that he didn’t want Remus to come with him, even though he really did. It was simply too risky. If Remus saw magic, really saw magic, he might be deluded into thinking he could have a life like that for himself. Lyall couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let his boy down twice.

Lyall was sitting out on his red armchair, reading the paper and smoking a pipe. Hope didn’t like it when he smoked in the house, said it was bad for Remus to breathe in and something about a muggle doctor report she read. Lyall dismissed it. He turned the page of the paper when Hope and Remus came back from town, holding brown bags filled with leafy vegetables. Hope also had a thick book slipped under her arm and they went into the ratty kitchen to set down the brown bags. Hope emerged from the kitchen to put the book on their bookshelf next to Lyall’s armchair a few minutes later.

“What’s that?” Lyall asked, pointing to the book.

Hope looked at Lyall as she tried to shove the book onto the top shelf. “It’s a book about mathmatics… something called Algebra. I don’t know much about it and I doubt you do either, seeing as you’re a wizard and they don’t teach you that sort of thing at your school, but I’m going to learn it. I was talking to Mr.Roberts, who works at the schoolhouse, you know him, and he says with what Remus is working on, Algebra would be the next step for his education. I never learned Algebra, had to quit school when I was thirteen, and Mr.Roberts says Algebra is something most teenagers do and that a kid Remus’s age has no business learning it, but I’m still going to teach it to him. He hasn’t got anything better to do and I think he’ll like it”, she said and she finally managed to push the book onto the shelf.

“I think I might be able to teach him something… I took arithmancy in school. It’s all maths, isn’t it?” Lyall said, trying to recall the complex maths he learned in his school days. 

Hope beamed at him, a look of relief taking over her face. “Oh, that’s good. ‘Cause I opened the book and I hadn’t had a clue what I was reading”.

Two days later Lyall Lupin sat Remus down on a lazy Sunday afternoon to try to teach him basic Algebra. It proved to be a hard task, mostly on Lyall’s part. Remus was sharp like his mother and could pick up on things without being told twice, allowing for him to absorb everything Lyall said. That was the problem. Lyall didn’t know what to say.

The math was easy. Lyall had been able to figure it out by just glancing at the book. It was his delivery that needed working on. 

Lyall stumbled over his words a lot, opting to read directly from the book. He would spare nervous glances at Remus to see if he was paying attention and feel hurt when he found Remus wasn’t. There was a decent amount of space between the two chairs the father and son sat on, and Remus sunk into his seat looking uncomfortable. That was the word that best summed up their Algebra sessions; uncomfortable. Teaching Remus Algebra made Lyall realize that he didn’t know how to talk to his son.

Five years had passed since the attack, and all Lyall could think about was how much he’d screwed up his son’s life. Years of overwhelming guilt, refusing to look his son in the face, and opting to ‘sit this one out’ had taken its toll and Lyall was afraid that the unspoken division between him and Remus was too big to mend. After three more Sunday evenings filled with awkward conversations, pencil scratches, and failed equations, Remus had collected the Algebra book from off the table and left to go to his room.

“I think I’ve got it now”, he said.

***  
Six months later, Remus returned the book to the bookshelf. Lyall looked up from the paper and took a sip of the beer he was nursing.

“Finish the book?” He asked. Normally he wouldn’t ask such a question, opting to leave Remus be. But Lyall was a bit buzzed right now. He’d been doing that a lot lately, getting a bit buzzed inorder to be more pleasant. He could talk more freely to his son and wife after a few muggle beers or a glass of firewhiskey.

Remus cringed a bit and nodded. “Yeah… er… think I got the hang of it”, he said. Remus was just as uncomfortable speaking to his father as Lyall was speaking to his son and Lyall knew it. Their conversations seemed forced, not like the loud ones Remus shared with Hope. Their conversations - whether it be in English or Welsh - were always chirpy and filled with laughter. Somedays Lyall couldn’t even say ‘hi’ to his son without eternally wincing. 

“Right. That’s good”, Lyall said. He took another sip of his beer and continued to read the paper. Remus left through the front door and Lyall didn’t have half the heart to stop him. Remus left a lot. He didn’t know where Remus went, but he knew Remus was a bit more tanned lately. He was probably roaming the hilltop, keeping himself busy. Remus was quite independent like that, taking lonesome walks and teaching himself Algebra, all at ten. He could handle himself. He was a Werewolf, after all.

Lyall had made sure of it.

*** 

By the time Remus was eleven, Albus Dumbledore himself had visited the Lupins’ residence. Dumbledore’s visit had been quite a shock. Lyall wished he had at least sent an owl before showing up unexpectedly on their shabby cottage doorstep. If Lyall knew his old Headmaster was popping in for a visit, he would have tidied up the house and maybe not have helped himself to his first drink at twelve. But they would have to make due. Hope put on the kettle for tea as Dumbledore sat himself down at their rickety kitchen table and began to explain his plan.

Lyall hadn’t expected him to be not only open but so accommodating for Remus. Lyall remebered what his coworkers at the Ministry thought of Werewolves, what Lyall himself used to think of Werewolves. He didn’t think a soul as kind as Dumbledore’s existed. 

Remus had been overjoyed to be offered a spot at Hogwarts. He didn’t say anything, but Lyall could tell by the spark in his eyes that lit up mid-conversation with Dumbledore. That spark stayed the whole summer, erupting when Lyall finally took him to Diagon Alley and Remus saw magic he hadn’t known was possible. Lyall suddenly felt guilty for keeping his son away from magic. But he couldn’t blame himself for that, he was only doing what he thought was best at the time.

Actually, he could blame himself for that. If Remus was never bitten, they wouldn’t have even had to hide him from magic in the first place. Lyall could blame himself for a lot of things and he did.

He blamed himself for every time Remus’s eyes got wide when he saw someone perform magic and every time Remus tugged at the hem of his sleeve to hide his scars on his forearms. He blamed himself for when he had to direct Remus to the second-hand bin at Flourish and Bolts instead of buying him new shiny books because Lyall had resigned from a job that was ultimately the reason for his son’s lycanthropy. He blamed himself for the way Remus struggled in conversation, not quite knowing how to talk to somebody other than his mother. Lyall blamed himself for a lot.

***

By the time Remus was twelve, Remus had already completed his first year at Hogwarts. He returned home from Hogwarts for the summer with a thick envelope addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Lupin. Remus apparently had no idea what the contents of the envelope were and explained that he had already tried to open it but couldn’t. He placed it on the kitchen counter with a sheepish smile.

“Must be some magic on it”, he said and shrugged before hauling his trunk into his room. 

Hope snatched the envelope from the counter and began to open it, but Lyall grabbed her hand.

“Let’s wait until he’s closed his door, just in case it’s bad”, Lyall whispered. Hope’s eyes widened but she nodded. They both had been scared senseless this year. Allowing Remus to attend Hogwarts was a big risk. If some wise student caught on to where Remus was disappearing once a month, there was a good chance that Remus could end up being put in danger. It wasn’t uncommon for Werewolves to be killed by prejudiced Wizards, and the catch was that they’d probably face very little prison time. The Ministry alongside the criminal justice units had less than favourable views on Werewolves. So Hope and Lyall had been more jittery than ever. Hope picked up smoking again, something she confessed to Lyall she had first started when she was a teenager but stopped after reading that muggle doctor article she frequently threw in Lyall’s face when he smoked his pipe in the house, and Lyall kept up his day drinking when he wasn’t working. Remus’s first year at Hogwarts was almost scarier than the night he was bitten.

The second they heard Remus’s room door shut, Hope tore the envelope open and pulled out the letter. She read it first, she was always first when it came to things about Remus, and her eyes remained stoic as she read. She handed the letter to Lyall with steady hands and a small smile.

“It’s nothing bad”, she assured.

Lyall nodded and took the letter, recognizing Minivera McGonagall’s handwriting. He had gone to school with her all those years back. He began to read the letter.

_Dear Mr. and Mrs.Lupin,_

_I’m writing this letter in regards to your son, Remus Lupin. As his head of house, it brings me immense joy to inform you that he has been a pleasure to teach this year. I know it can be hard to get children to talk, especially at this tender age, so I thought it would be best if someone of authenticity informed you of his well-being._

_The junior Mr.Lupin is an exceptionally bright and kind student. The owl with this year’s marks should be coming your way soon, but I can assure you that the wait is unnecessary. I can tell you now that Mr.Lupin has achieved passing marks in all of his classes._

_Mr.Lupin has also befriended a group of young talented men. While all of them are quite intelligent and gifted, they do have a knack for causing disruptions. But I must say, it is my pleasure to have Mr.Lupin stay after hours and sort through my paperwork during detentions. I daresay he is good company._

_I do not hesitate to say that the two of you have raised an intelligent and promising young man. I look forward to teaching him in these following years._

_Sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall_

When Lyall finished reading the letter, he set it down on the counter and looked up at Hope, who was beaming ear to ear.

“Wasn’t that nice of her to write to us? I’m sure she’s very busy being the head of house and it was awfully thoughtful of her to think to write to us”, Hope smiled.

“It was nice of her”, Lyall agreed. “But do you think we ought to talk to him about the detentions?”

Lyall wasn’t stupid. He knew someone with Remus’s condition couldn’t afford to mess around like that. But God bless Hope Lupin for her kind, foolish, muggle-heart. She threw her head back laughing and shook her head.

“Oh Lyall”, she looked at him amused and touched his shoulder. “You think too much”.

“But-”

“Shh”, Hope interrupted, putting a finger on her lips. “It’s fine, Lyall. He’s just doing normal kid things, stirring up a little trouble with his friends and getting a few detentions. He’s being _normal_ , Lyall. Isn’t that what we always wanted for him? To live a normal life?”

Lyall bowed his head. He knew Hope was right. If it were any other kid, the detentions wouldn’t mean anything. 

“You’re right, honey”.

Hope smiled at him. “Of course I am. When have I ever been wrong?”. She wrapped her arms around his neck and gave him a quick peck on the lips. “Let’s go into town tonight, to celebrate Remus’s return from a successful year at school”.

They went to the one restaurant at the bottom of the hill and all ordered fish and chips. Lyall watched as Remus munched on his chips and told stories of Professors and Quidditch games and rough exams and his new friends. Lyall noted that Remus carefully exempted any stories of the detentions and Lyall didn’t press about it. For one night, Lyall could convince himself that his family was completely normal. 

***

Remus received a lot, _a lot_ of owls that summer. The owls, all young and well-trimmed, flew through the windows and Hope would scream in shock before calling Remus from his room. He’d smile and take the letters tied to their feet before disappearing into his room. Lyall didn’t see just how many letters Remus got or sent that summer as he was working most days, but Hope informed him that it was a copious, and _obnoxious_ amount. The main senders were from three boys named James Potter, Sirius Black (‘Yes he’s a Black, but he’s not a Black, dad. Doesn’t get along with his folks at all’), and Peter Pettigrew, and Lyall recognized their names from the stories Remus shared the night they went into town. But according to Hope, there were also owls from girls. A frequent writer was a girl named Lily Evans, who Remus had not mentioned once. He also got a few from girls named Mary, Marlene, and Dorcas, those three he had certainly not mentioned. 

Hope had wanted to interrogate her son about all his female writers but Lyall convinced Hope to leave it be. There would be plenty of time to worry about their son’s relations with the fairer sex, but now was not the time.

***

By the time Remus was thirteen, Lyall realized with a jolt that his son was _popular_. Lyall had never been really good with people and had been far from popular when he attended school. He hadn’t expected Remus to be popular with the way he previously struggled to string together conversations not two years ago. Remus was also bookish and quiet, much like Lyall. So Lyall hadn’t expected Remus to be the center of attention.

Lyall had been the one to cross the platform, since Hope was a muggle and could not enter Plattform 9 ¾, and he waited among the sea of parents for the train to arrive.

At first, Lyall wondered if Remus was even on the train. Dozens of kids left each cart, all hugging their friends and parents. Some older students -- presumably seventh years -- were crying. But after ten minutes, Remus Lupin was still not to be seen. Eventually, he came out from one cart with three other boys and a very angry plump woman leading them out. Lyall immediately identified her as the Trolley woman. She wasn’t the same woman as when Lyall went to school, but he saw her apron and her stern expression and put two and two together.

Once the four boys made their way out of the cart and into the main crowd of students, the Trolley lady left, retreating back into the train, and the boys soon attracted a small crowd of students. Lyall watched with a mixture of amusement, shock, and horror as the students, young and old, all came up to the four boys, clasping their shoulders and patting them on their backs. Some girls gave them hugs, and Lyall noted that Remus got the most hugs out of the boys. One boy with long elegant black hair got a few kisses on the cheek, but Remus definitely got the most hugs. One particular hug between him and a short girl with auburn hair lingered a bit and Lyall saw another boy standing beside Remus with unruly black hair frown. Interesting.

Lyall waited along the sidelines of the platform until the crowd around the boys died down. Remus spotted him leaning against one of the walls with his arms crossed and made his way over with a smile.

“Hiya, Dad”, he said, his voice chirpy. Lyall figured it was from all the commotion.

“Hi, Remus”, Lyall said back loftily. “I see you’re quite popular”, he noted.

Remus blushed an awful shade of red. “Nah, all those people were just there ‘cause of James and Sirius”, he replied. 

“Hmm…”, Lyall hummed as they walked towards the wall that would lead back into the muggle world. Lyall picked his pace up, wanting to get back to Hope as soon as possible. She’d know what to say to Remus. Lyall didn’t know what to say to a popular Werewolf with a knack for causing distubtions. Remus was everything Lyall had never dreamed his boy would be.

***

By the time Remus was fourteen, he had taken to growing his hair out long. He inherited Lyall’s loose curls and his mother’s sandy-blondish-brown hair, which now went down to his shoulder. Lyall could tell Hope didn’t like her son’s new choice in hair. She watched him whenever he entered the kitchen or sat in the living room, her eyes fixed on his hair.

“Just let me cut an inch”, she pleaded on Saturday afternoon. Lyall was just getting ready to go out to the Cauldron for a drink with some coworkers when he walked in on Hope and Remus not quite arguing but not quite having a peaceful conversation regarding his hair.

“No, mum. I haven’t even grown it out as long as I wanted it to be!” He groaned.

“You look like a bum”, she countered.

“All of the other boys in this town have hair like mine. It looks good”, he said, running his fingers through his hair, as if to prove a point. Lyall had to stop himself from laughing. Remus looked ridiculous.

Hope frowned and clicked her tongue. She muttered something in Welsh and Remus rolled his eyes before saying something back. Lyall took that as his cue to leave. There was no point in trying to understand what was going on once the two switched to Welsh.

When Lyall came back, he entered the living room to see Hope and Remus huddled on the couch with their feet up watching the telly. Remus had his head resting against his mother’s shoulder and Hope had her arms firmly wrapped around her son. Lyall smiled. Nothing could get between the two, not lycanthropy and certainly not a haircut.

***

By the time Remus was fifteen, he had fully entered the woes of adolescence and romantic struggles. Lyall found him curled up on the couch in the living room with the lamplight on, frowning at the book he was reading. It was two in the morning and Lyall had just wanted a glass of water, but he was quite curious as to why his son was awake at this hour. 

Lyall slowly walked up to his red sitting chair and took a seat, sighing as he did so. His back really wasn’t doing well in his old age.

“Hi”, Remus said, his eyes still glued to the book.

“Hello, Remus”, Lyall replied slowly, his words slurring due to his sleepiness. He noticed an opened envelope and a piece of paper lying on the table next to the couch and stared at it. “Is something wrong, Remus?” He asks against his better judgment. Maybe he was too tired to care that all of his and Remus’s conversations always got awkward and stiff and that this one would inevitably also turn uncomfortable.

“Nothing”, Remus grumbled before turning a page. He had luckily gotten rid of that god-awful haircut and gotten somebody to trim it while at school. His tawny curls now tufted out behind his ear, still longer than how boys wore their hair when Lyall was his age but short enough for Hope to approve of it. 

She was sick now, and both boys knew that even if they didn’t talk about it. Hope didn’t either. She liked to pretend that she wasn’t getting frailer by the day, just like Lyall had pretended that his son didn’t have lycanthropy for years. Maybe that’s what made everything so stiff and awkward. Lyall had never told Remus that he was alright, that Lyall didn’t care that he was a Werewolf. Hope had told Remus that, she said it in English and Lyall would bet good money that she said it to him in Welsh as well. Hope always knew just what to say and just when to say it. But now, she was ill, and no matter how much everyone chose to ignore it, there was no getting around it.

But they were pretending right now, so it didn’t matter.

“C’mon Remus, talk to your old man”, Lyall prodded. He didn’t know why he did, maybe he was scared that Remus wouldn’t have anyone to talk to if Hope… if she… She’d get better.

Remus actually looked at Lyall, putting his book on his lap. His amber eyes were beady and tired, much like Lyall’s. 

“It’s really dumb”, he said with a slight smile.

“Good”, Lyall said, “because I don’t think I could give you any worthwhile advice if it were anything serious”.

Remus chuckled a bit and Lyall relished in making his son laugh. Remus picked up his book and bent a page in it, marking it for later before sighing deeply and rubbing his temples.

“When I say it’s dumb, it’s really dumb”, Remus warned, looking almost embarrassed.

“Go on”, Lyall encouraged.

“It’s about a girl”.

“Oh?” Lyall said. He was never good with girls when he was a teenager. He was twenty when he got his first real girlfriend and they hardly lasted a year. Lyall was very lucky to have heard Hope’s screams that one night. If he hadn’t, chances were that he’d be alone right now.

Remus laughed a bit -- no, he giggled -- and shook his head. “I like her, but so does my best mate. And I think he likes her more than I do”.

Lyall could have laughed. If you told him eleven years ago that he’d be talking to his newly transformed, soon-to-be-abandoned, Werewolf of a son about some bloody love triangle, he would have said you were crazy. But here he was, listening to Remus ramble on about a girl named Lily Evans and how his best mate James Potter had been enamored by her since first-year.

“He really likes her and he’s been after her since first-year. But Lily doesn’t like him back, she doesn’t like him one bit. She actually thinks I’m daft for even being his friend. But Lily and I get on okay, we talk a lot when James, Sirius, and Peter are being too immature, she’s a really good listener. I think I’ve liked her since… third-year maybe, but I always assumed she just saw me as a friend. Her friend Marlene has been trying to get me to ask Lily out to Hogsmeade for like… a year now, and I’ve only thought she’d been joking. But then I get this letter from Lily and it sort of sounds like she likes me.”

He gestures to the letter on the table. 

“Well, what are you going to do about it?” Lyall asked.

Remus recoiled back and furrowed his eyebrows, looking deep in thought.

“Nothing, I guess”, he finally said after a few minutes of silence.

“Nothing?” Lyall asked. Back when Lyall was a teenager, if he knew a girl liked him, he’d most definitely ask her out. Lyall wasn’t too popular back in school with girls, he had been eager to take up any dates, even with the ugliest and rudest girls in school.

Remus nodded his head. “James likes her more than I do. It would break his heart if I got with her… he might punch me”, Remus mused. He grew silent again and sighed. “Plus, it’d never work out anyway. I’m a Werewolf, after all”. He didn’t say it bitterly but he certainly didn’t say it happily. He just said it, like he was talking about the weather or who won the Quidditch cup.

Lyall winced. It was now his fault that Remus couldn't (or wouldn’t) get a girlfriend. But he was the one who asked Remus what was wrong, after all. Can’t complain that you don’t like the wrong answer.

***

When Remus was sixteen, Lyall was scared that Remus might not make it out alive. Over the summer, Remus had grown extremely withdrawn, preferring to spend his days out in town. Lyall nor Hope tried to stop him, they both knew he was old enough to handle himself. Whenever anybody tried to ask him about his change of mood, he’d just brush them off or head back into town. 

“What do you think he even does down there?” Hope asked from the bed. Hope hadn’t been able to get out of bed lightly. The muggle doctor said it was something called ‘lung cancer’ and Lyall had no clue what that meant except that it was caused by smoking. Remus had seemed to know what it meant though, he had left the room in a hurry. He did that a lot when he was stressed, he’d just leave. 

“I don’t know”, Lyall said, although he had a sinking feeling of what Remus might be getting up to. A few days ago, Ms. Davidson came around with a casserole after she heard the news that Hope was sick and informed Lyall that she had seen Remus hanging around with some boys at the park and that they _may or may not_ have been smoking cigarettes.

“Maybe he’s made friends with some of the farm boys”, Hope suggested with her eyes closed. 

Lyall nodded. He didn’t have the heart to tell Hope that their son had picked up the habit that was currently digging Hope into an early grave. 

“I reckon he is a bit of a farm boy”, Lyall said instead.

Hope laughed a bit. “I think he’s a city boy… he’s just never had the chance to really live in one yet.”

Lyall shrugged and wiped a strand of Hope’s hair behind her ears. “Maybe”. He didn’t think about how Hope would never get to see that day.

***

Lyall found out a month later on a hot August now that Remus had not _just_ been smoking cigarettes. Hope had passed just a week before when Lyall decided to go for a late-night walk, like the ones he used to go on with Hope when they first moved to the countryside. Lyall hadn’t noticed Remus’s open bedroom door nor that Remus’s bedroom was empty. He was too caught up in his own head to realize his son had been sneaking out late at night.

Lyall took the path through the trees, taking shelter under their branches. He remembered walking under those trees with Hope just a year ago. They had stayed up that night to watch the full moon, something they often did while Remus was at Hogwarts. If he walked far enough, he’d reach a small brook that had smooth pebbles that tumbled underneath the soft current of the water. Hope liked the brook. It wasn’t technically apart of the property, but nobody ever went back there. It was practically their’s. Lyall decided to visit the brook for old time’s sake.

He emerged from the trees, the soft sound of water churning ringing throughout the air, and saw a soft glowing ember in the dark. He drew his wand out and cast a light. It was then that he saw Remus sitting at the edge of the brook, smoking what Lyall thought was a cigarette.

“Remus!” Lyall called out. With a jump, Remus turned around and looked at his father with red cheeks. “What are you doing out here?” Lyall demanded. He hadn’t had many paternal instincts since the accident, but all of a sudden he felt very much like a father.

Remus subbed out whatever he was smoking on the ground, keeping it in between his fingers, and stood up. He patted off some dirt from his jeans and shrugged. 

“Just needed some fresh air”, Remus said loftily.

Lyall scoffed. Fresh air alright, that was a lie. For starters, the air out there had smelt like a decaying skunk and-- Oh.

“Are you…”, Lyall found himself stumbling over his words. He remembered the crumbled green plant that the Werewolves fought over at the dens and how they’d roll them into cigarettes, getting all loopy off them. Hope said it was a muggle drug that was quite popular among the youth… that youth now including Remus. “High?”

Remus didn’t respond to that. He just turned and walked into the woods, disappearing. Lyall sighed, shrugged it off, and continued on with his walk. He’d talk to Remus about it in the morning.

When Lyall knocked to enter Remus’s room the next morning, he was terrified to be met with silence. 

“Remus!” He cried, praying to whatever god out there that Remus was just sleeping in. When it was clear Lyall was going to get no answer, he withdrew his wand and magically unlocked the bedroom door. He pushed the door open slowly, just in case he was walking in on something he didn’t want to see.

To his horror, Remus wasn’t there. His bed was made and his books were stacked neatly in the corner of his desk, but Remus was nowhere in sight. Lyall left the room promptly, his heart pounding against his chest. He tried to convince himself that Remus was just in town and that he’d be back home before the nightfall. He hurried into the kitchen and helped himself to the bottle of firewhiskey stashed at the top of the fridge and sought solace on his red armchair. He sunk into the chair and took two sips of the burning liquid before bursting out in choked sobs.

***

Remus did not return that night and not the next. Lyall began to really worry, he didn’t know where Remus could possibly be after he disappeared into the forest. He was beginning to wonder if he should contact the Ministry. Surely they had people that would help track down missing wizards. Or maybe he should contact the muggle police. Remus was born at a muggle hospital, so he existed in the muggle work. Maybe they could find him.

Remus returned a week later. His hair was tousled and matted and his amber eyes were drowning in a pool of dark bags under his eyes when he entered through the front door. His clothes looked even worse, his jeans were ripped and his shirt was stained with something suspiciously red. They were the same clothes he had been wearing the night he disappeared. 

Lyall stood up from his red armchair. He began to feel his hands shake with anger as he barreled towards his son.

“Where the hell have you been!?” He yelled. He grabbed Remus by the shoulders and slammed him against the wall. He was too angry to feel bad when Remus’s head hit the wall with a loud _thud_. If Hope were here, she’d probably embrace him and ask him what the reason for his departure was. But Lyall had never been as mellow and calm as Hope. Lyall was quiet, except for when he was mad. He could get a temper when he was mad, it’s what got him into this entire mess in the first place.

“Get off me”, Remus growled and he threw his father away. Lyall stumbled back and for the first time, he saw Remus as somebody else might. He was tall, rugged, and had a shifty look to his eye. He looked dangerous… almost like the wolves at the pack. 

“Answer my question! Where have you been?”

Remus scowled and shrugged, wedging his way out of the doorway and into the living room, closing the door behind him. “Around”, he answered simply.

“Around?” Lyall exclaimed. Remus goes missing for a weak and all he has to say about his departure was that he was ‘around’. No, that was not going to cut it. “I don’t know what’s gotten into your head, but you live under _my_ roof and therefore you have to answer to me. So tell me, Remus, where the hell have you been?”

Remus ignored his father’s question and made his way down the hallway, stopping in front of his bedroom door. He grabbed the handle and twisted it, opening the door.

“I bet you were out mucking about with those farm boys, getting high! How could you possibly smoke dope knowing your mother died because of those very fumes!” Lyall screamed. He knew it was a low blow and quite hypocritical, but he’d try anything to get Remus’s attention. He was never good with words, always having to choose the harsher options in order to gain attention.

It worked. Remus turned around and looked at Lyall with pure fury.

“How DARE you say that! You’re the one who smoked like a chimney even when mum told you not to! You’re the one who was half-drunk my entire childhood because you couldn’t deal with the fact your only child was a Werewolf! And don’t deny it! I fucking know you’re ashamed of me. For two fucking years you couldn’t look me in the face! I’m pretty sure if it weren’t for mum, you would have thrown me out. So don’t start with this self-righteous bullshite. I don’t want to hear it”.

Lyall went blank. He didn’t know if Remus was simply drawing conclusions, making assumptions, or if Hogwarts was offering a new Legilimency class and he had signed up for it. Lyall also hadn’t known that Remus remembered those two years of lost eye contact. Did Remus really think it was because Lyall was ashamed of him? It was the guilt that prevented Lyall from looking at his son, right? Had Lyall actually been ashamed of Remus? 

“What are you talking about?” Lyall asked, his voice dropping an octave.

Remus smiled bitterly and shook his head, looking at the floor. “You’re fucking stupid for keeping those papers”, Remus spat. Lyall felt his stomach drop as he remembered the box underneath his bed that had his work papers in it, including a written transcript of everything said in the courtroom that fateful night. Was that what was making Remus upset? Had he found the papers and news clippings, put two and two together, and grew resentment towards his father?

“What papers?” Lyall asked dumbly and suddenly Lyall felt like the sixteen-year-old being yelled at by his parents.

“The ones where you called Werewolves soulless, evil, and deserving of death. I’m not fucking dumb and I don’t know why you think I am. Werewolves just don’t fucking fly through windows and randomly bite people. It’s no coincidence that a day after the hearing I was turned. And don’t you deny it, ‘cause I saw the picture. You’ve got a picture of that man… Greyback… it was taken from the day of his trial. It smells like him”, Remus said.

“You can smell him?” Lyall asked. He heard that Werewolves had heightened senses, but he hadn’t known they’d be _that_ heightened. Remus never really talked about his lycanthropy to anyone. Maybe he talked to Hope about it, but those conversations certainly weren’t in English.

Remus shrugged. “That doesn’t matter, does it? You’re not denying it”, he whispered. He looked at Lyall desperately, begging him to say something, begging him to deny it.

Lyall felt his heart tumble. He couldn’t.

“Right. First, it was Sirius and now it’s you. I guess in a way I am soulless, evil, and I certainly deserve death”, was all Remus said before entering his room and closing the door behind him.

Lyall didn’t know what to do, he didn't even know what Remus meant by his departing words. Lyall was half-scared that Remus would kill himself and half-scared that Remus would kill him. If only Hope were here. Hope had been enough of a parent for the both of them, but now she was gone. If Lyall had a time turner, he’d go back to that day when he first bought his pipe and would slap it out of his hands. Bloody lung cancer.

***

By the time Remus was seventeen, he didn’t seem to care much for Lyall. He was cordial, but he wasn’t pleasant. But then again, he never was very close with his father. At least he wore the watch Lyall gave him for coming of age.

Most boys Remus’s age would be overjoyed to be of age and legally allowed to use magic. Lyall certainly had been. He had been using spell after spell for the simplest things, simply because he could. But the only thing Remus seemed to be interested in using his magic for was lighting spliffs and cigarettes. Lyall didn’t even try to stop him, he just let him. Everyday Remus would sit out on the front porch to light up. He normally smoked fags throughout the day and dope in the nighttime, but sometimes he would start early. Lyall wondered where he got the dope from, with the way the wolves in the dens had fought over it, you’d think the plant was going extinct. Maybe Remus also used a duplication spell on it. That would make two spells Remus had used over the summer.

***

By the time Remus was eighteen, he had packed all of his boxes out of the house. He didn’t have much stuff, nobody in the Lupin household, dead or alive, had ever had much since the accident. Remus shrank his boxes to fit into his pocket and walked towards Lyall, who was once again sitting down on his red armchair, wondering how things could have gone differently.

“Well, I’m off then”, Remus hummed.

Lyall looked at his son, took a really good look at him. His hair was cut at a reasonable length and his eyes didn’t have dark bags underneath them. He wasn’t scrawny like he had been most of his life, rather he was lean and toned like he had eaten a few good meals and filled out a bit. Remus looked healthier than Lyall had ever seen him before. Hence _looked_ , because the second Remus opened his mouth to speak, Lyall would wince at the sound of his son’s overly hoarse and raspy voice. Days of chain-smoking had taken its toll on Remus’s vocal cords.

“Remind me again where you are going”, Lyall said, even though Remus had never even told him exactly where he was going.

“I’m moving in with Sirius”, he said. Lyall remembered that name. Remus had told Hope so many stories about the aristocratic, self-proclaimed rebel, Sirius Black. Lyall also remembered Remus’s departing words he said that one night two years back. _‘First it was Sirius and now it’s you.’_ Lyall half-debated begging Remus to stay. If Sirius was anything like Lyall had been, Remus would be much better off without him.

“Alright”, Lyall agreed. He didn’t ask if Remus had a job, he knew Remus didn’t, and he didn't ask Remus how he was going to afford all of it. He just let him go, because that’s what Lyall Lupin seemed to do best; let other people handle his son. “When will I see you again?”

Remus looked taken back. He furrowed his eyebrows and bit his bottom lip like Hope did when she was surprised. “Do you want to see me again?”

It was Lyall’s turn to look taken back. “Of course I do, Remus. You’re my son and I love you, even if I can’t always… show it”, he felt his throat get tight at the last two words. There were so many things Lyall Lupin would like to do over. 

“I…”, Remus trailed before turning away. Lyall thought he may have seen water forming at his lids. “I… I’ll be back soon”, he said before the loud rumbling of a motorbike interupted them. “I’ve got to go, bye dad”, he said hastily.

Lyall watched from the window as a man with long black hair pulled up on a motorbike and Remus ran out the house, grinning like an idiot as he approached the man. Lyall assumed it was Sirius, he matched Remus’s description.

Remus leaned forward towards Sirius and Lyall thought they were going to embrace before Remus closed the space in between their lips. Lyall Lupin watched in shock as Remus snogged his childhood best friend. 

Lyall wasn’t thick. He knew about queers, in fact, there was a rumor that Dumbledore was a queer. Lyall recognized the way Remus stared at Sirius when he pulled back from the kiss with twinkling eyes and he knew what it meant when Sirius slid his arms over Remus’s shoulder and squeezed tightly. It was young-love and Lyall couldn’t help but remember the way Hope looked at him all those years ago in the Welsh forest. Remus looked just like his mother did when they were in love.

***

Remus did not visit soon. He sent letters via owl occasionally, explaining that he was doing okay but was involved with something dangerous and couldn’t risk his father’s safety by visiting. Lyall didn’t have the heart to inform his son that he didn’t care, that he’d risk it just to see Remus again. Lyall had nothing to live for except his son, who he had wronged so many times.

Eventually, the letters home became sparse. Coincidently, the war that had plagued the country for over a decade also got increasingly dire. Remus Lupin wasn’t an idiot but neither was Lyall Lupin. He knew Remus had always had a good soul and he knew which side of the war his son was on.

On a crisp November morning, Lyall Lupin sat down on his red armchair like how he started most mornings and read the paper that the owl delivered. To his delight, the headline read:

**_The Dark Lord Vanishes: War No More_ **

Lyall was so happy, he could have kissed somebody. That war had been going on for what was too bloody long. It was only as he read on did his stomach drop.

_Harry Potter; the boy who lived… orphaned when the Dark Lord killed both his parents, Pureblood James Potter and Muggle-born Lily Potter (nee Evans)… both only twenty-one at the time of their death..._

Lyall recognized those names. He knew James from all the countless tales Remus had told during summer breakfasts and he knew Lily from that one rare night that Remus had let Lyall into a hidden part of his life. Remus’s best mate and a girl he was friends with and once fancied was murdered the night before. Lyall’s chest felt strained. He pictured the young couple, trapped in eternal sleep, leaving their loved ones behind.

***  
A week later, Lyall Lupin sat down to read the paper when he received even more shocking news.

**_Sirius Black: Serial Killer and Crazed Death Eater_ **

Remus showed up on his doorstep that day. His hair was tangled and overgrown, even longer than it had been when he was fourteen, and the bags under his eyes were there again. Remus also acquired more scars than ever before, the nastiest one being three gashes going across his face, and he appeared to have a black eye that was probably completely unrelated to his monthly transformations. He was also paler and so skinnier than Lyall had ever seen, he was _emaciated_. Remus looked the worst Lyall had ever seen him, even worse than the night when he was four years old, bleeding to death on his bed.

Lyall took one look at his son in the doorway and threw his arms around him. Remus leaned into the embrace and started sobbing. Lyall tried to comfort him, he patted his back and stroked his hair, trying to mimic what Hope would do. But a lot had changed since Hope died, they were going to do this Lyall’s way.

Once Remus had collected himself enough to make his way into the house and sit on the couch, Lyall darted into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of firewhiskey and two glasses. He poured them both a cup and listened as Remus screamed his heart out.

“I thought I could trust him! I loved him! And what did he do? He killed them! Sirius fucking killed them! He killed James and he killed Lily and he killed Peter and he left Harry an orphan! Dumbledore won’t even let me see the poor kid all because of Sirius fucking Black! He murdered them in cold blood. I should have expected it, honestly. I’m just a Werewolf and he’s just a Black.”

Remus took a panicked breath and shuddered. 

“Why was I the one who lived?”

Lyall didn’t know half of what Remus was going on about, but he nodded in the right places and made sure to constantly refill their glasses. Remus crashed in his childhood bedroom and was gone by the time the morning sun rolled around.

***

Remus disappeared for a year after that. Lyall grew very worried. He feared Remus might be dead or injured or ill somewhere and incapable of sending letters. He remembered Remus talking about killing himself when he was sixteen and wondered if he finally did it.

Lyall had tried asking around, asking younger coworkers if they knew a Remus Lupin and if so where he might be. For months he got no answer. It was only when he asked a young girl with an emerald shawl and sharp pointed nails who was leaving from the Department of Magical Transportation if by any chance she knew a Remus Lupin did he get anywhere.

“Why?” She asked defensively. 

This was new. Most of the time when Lyall askes he’d either get a ‘Sorry, I don’t know him’ or a ‘Haven’t seen him since Hogwarts’ and that was it. 

“I need to know where he is”, Lyall informed the girl. She looked around back and forth, possibly checking for any on-lookers. 

“Sorry, I don’t trust that”, she answered. She gave him a dismissive look, her green eyes peering at him.

“But you know where he is?” Lyall asked. He watched as her eyes darted towards the ground and she frowned. She did. “Can you at least tell me how you know him?”

She looked back up at him. “I went to school with him, was a year younger. Worked with him after school for a few years”, she said almost fondly. That was interesting, so she was in on the dangerous something that prevented Remus from visiting. She looked up at Lyall and folded her arms. “How exactly do _you_ know him?”

Lyall suddenly stood up straighter. “I’m his father”.

The young witch’s jaw dropped. “Blimey, now that you mention it, you two do look alike”.

“Right, well seeing as you seem to know more than you’re letting on, I’d like to know right now if you can help me find my son or not”.

The witch looked around the empty corridor around them and bit her lip. She looked like she was mulling it over, having some sort of inner debate with herself.

“Do you know how to use a muggle telephone?” She asked.

Lyall nodded. Hope had been quite amused when she found out Lyall didn’t know how to work the telephone. She spent all night teaching him how to dial a number. It was a fun night.

“Okay”, the young witch said as she took her wand out and summoned a piece of paper from thin air. She glanced at it before flicking her wand again to embed a list of numbers on it. She handed him the piece of paper. “I don’t know exactly where Remus is, he won’t really talk to me much. But call this number, she’ll know where he is. Ask for a Mary McDonald and let me know what happens. I’m Emmeline Vance, by the way. I work in Transportation”.

Lyall took the paper gratefully and rushed home. He called the number first thing after walking through the door.

The phone only rang for two beeps before a soft, feminine voice picked up.

_“Hello?”_

“Hi, is there a Mary McDonald there”.

Pause. 

_“This is she”_

Lyall felt his heart speed up. He _really_ hoped this wouldn’t be another dead end.

“Hi… er… a woman named Emmeline Vance gave me this number. I’m looking for somebody and she said that you might be of some help”.

_“Look, is this about that bloody war? If you're looking for somebody who’s missing, they’re probably dead. I really don’t want to get involved in any of this shite, it’s why I opted out of that dumbarse Order in the first place. All it was was lies, sabotage, and guilt. Half my friends are dead because of it and the other half hate each other for it. So if you’re looking for somebody pronounced dead, I’m not going to tell you anything. I heard what happened to Alice and Frank and I-”_

“I’m looking for Remus. Remus Lupin”, Lyall cut in, interrupting her angered rant. He figured he’d get straight to the point. If this Mary woman wasn’t going to help Lyall find his son, then he’d like to at least have the rest of the evening to mope around. “He survived the war, I know that for sure. Please, Emmeline Vance said you might know where he is. She talked about him like he was still alive and I’d really like to know if you knew anything about his whereabouts. Please, I’m begging you. If you know anything, _anything_ about where my son might be, please tell me”, he finished with a deep breath.

_“Your son? You aren’t his father, are you?”_

“I am”.

_“Christ Almighty. Fuck. Okay, I can’t tell you where he is. But I can show you.”_

They scheduled to meet on a Monday morning at the Leaky Cauldron. Mary McDonald said that it would be the best day to track Remus down, something about him being in and out most days. Lyall would have to take off work that day, but it was fine because maybe, just maybe, he’d be able to see Remus again.

***

“You said you couldn’t tell me where he was but could show me, but you could have just given me this address”, Lyall said as he looked at the tall apartment building. It was a shabby complex, with many windows broken into or with bars drilled into them. The apartment building was in a run-down area of London and it made Lyall think about what Hope said all those years ago. _“I think he’s a city boy… he’s just never had the chance to really live in one yet.”_ Well now Remus was living in a big ol’ city.

Mary shook her head. She was a beautiful young woman with dark chocolatey eyes that reminded Lyall of Remus’s and smooth brown skin. She kept herself in one of those collared dresses with puffy sleeves and bore a sweet smile the entire time from when they sat down at the Leaky Cauldron to when she apparated him to the apartment complex. 

“Sorry, I didn't actually think you were his father. Didn’t have that Wesh lilt we all teased him for”, she smiled before abruptly growing dark. “And I had to be sure you were his father. I don’t know how much Remus has told you about these last few years, but things have been rough. I think you might have gathered from my angry ranting on the phone-- sorry about that, by the way -- that Remus was involved with some pretty dangerous stuff. There were so many times that he could’ve died… like the rest of them... He’s brave, you raised a brave man”, she said.

Lyall cringed. He hadn’t done much raising. Maybe he had forced Remus to be a brave man.

“I must warn you, though”, Mary started up again. “He might-- no-- he won’t want to see you. He doesn’t even like it when I come around, but I think it’ll be good for him to see a familiar face. You might want to wait outside his flat, though. He’ll kill me if I let you in without a warning”.

Lyall nodded along and followed her into the building. They walked up two flights of stairs in silence before tapering off into a hallway filled with rubbish and cigarette butts. It saddened Lyall to think of his bright-eyed son living in these conditions. He only hoped that Remus’s flat would be better kept than the hallway.

Mary walked up to a yellowish-wooden door and raised her fist to it. As she knocked on the door, Lyall noticed the smile she bore throughout their meeting had disappeared, a worried frown replacing it. 

“Remus”, she called as she knocked. She pressed her ear up towards the door and rolled her eyes. “I know you’re in there, Rem. Open up this blasted door right now. I know you’re in there”. 

Lyall’s ears rang at his son’s nickname. _Rem_. When did he start going by that? There was a lot Lyall didn’t know about Remus.

After a few more aggressive knocks on Mary’s part, the door suddenly swung open. Lyall kept his distance and watched as Mary disappeared behind the door. The second it closed he snuck up to it and pressed his ear against the door much like Mary had.

“Mary, why’d you bring him here?” a scratchy voice that Lyall quickly identified as Remus’s yelled. “I don’t want him to see me like this!”

“He’s your father, Remus!” Mary exclaimed.

“Which is exactly why I don’t want him to see me like this!”

“You forced me to go back home and reconnect with my folks, well now it’s my turn to help mend some relationships. I’m not leaving until you at least greet him. He seems to really be worried for you-”

“Mary, I can’t. You know how you didn’t want to go home because you thought your folks would think you’re a coward? Well, I know I’m a coward. I don’t want my dad to see me like this.”

“Oh, Remus”, Mary cooed. Lyall heard a pause and some shuffling. “You’re not a coward, you’re one of the bravest people I know. Just put on some clean clothes and I’ll tidy the place up. At least have a cuppa with your father… he really misses you, I can tell”.

“Can you… can you stay with me?” Remus’s shaky voice pleaded.

“Of course, Remus. But only if you come with me to visit Hagrid, I can’t get through all those rock cakes on my own”. They both laughed.

“Yeah, just ring me up and tell me whenever you’re going”.

Lyall heard more shuffling and the sound of a door opening and closing. He also heard Mary cast some cleaning and disillusion spells before he heard soft footsteps approach the door. Lyall immediately stepped back, trying to make it seem like he wasn’t eavesdropping when Mary opened the door.

“He’s in the toilet”, Mary said while letting him in. She made her way into the kitchen, which really wasn’t a kitchen. The entire flat was two rooms, one room that contained a small kitchen, a fold-out bed, and a television, and the other was what Lyall assumed was the bathroom. “You can sit on the fold-out”.

Lyall took a seat on the fold-out and wondered just how well Mary knew Remus. She seemed to know her way around his flat well. He watched her as she put on a kettle for some tea until he heard a doorknob creak and saw Remus emerge from the room.

Remus stared at his father with red-tinted cheeks and a clear embarrassed look. His hair had grown out again, almost as long as when he was fourteen, except this time a few greys speckled his sandy curls. The dark bags were back and his coppery eyes had a new dark and disheveled look to them, like he had seen more than any boy his age needed to see. He was still skinny but had gained a few pounds from the last time Lyall had seen him, which pleased Lyall. Remus had been nothing but skin and bones a year ago.

“Hi”, Remus said, his voice hoarser than ever. He sounded like he needed a glass of water.

“Hi, Remus”, Lyall started steadily. He knew he had to be the bigger person here, he had to be the parent. “How are you?”

“I’m…”, he trailed off and looked to his side. “I’m fine”, he said and everyone in the flat knew he was lying. “How are you?”

Lyall tried to smile. “I’m alright. I’ve been holding up”. It wasn’t a lie. He had been enjoying slower days at the Ministry, drinks out with coworkers, and watching muggle television in the evenings. But he still missed Remus and Hope terribly. He was just getting along, really.

Remus nodded slowly like he was still processing everything. “Right, that’s good”. He walked over next to the telly and tapped his fingers against it. Lyall could tell he was thinking about something, but he didn’t ask what. He didn’t want to push anything.

“How did you find me?” Remus finally asked. Lyall finally realized something. Remus hadn’t been missing this last year because he was dead, or injured, or ill. He hadn’t killed himself. He was hiding, hiding from his own father.

“A young witch named Emmeline Vance gave me your friend’s phone number”.

Remus laughed bitterly and shook his head. “I’m going to kill Emmeline if I ever see her again.”

Mary returned with three cups of tea and Lyall drank his quickly. He knew when he wasn’t wanted. After a few minutes of stiff conversation, he thanked Mary for her kindness and bid Remus good bye. He apparated home and fell onto his red armchair, the only thing that remained constant throughout his life. He didn’t turn on the telly and he didn’t pull out the paper to read. He sat on his chair in a minute of silence before he felt a tear drop escape his eye. Remus wasn’t his boy anymore. 

He cried with guilt, just like the morning after Remus’s first transformation.

***

Remus visited occasionally after that. He’d visit every day for a few weeks before disappearing for another three months. Every time he visited, he’d look completely different. The first time he visited Lyall was two months after Lyall showed up at his flat. He had crimped hair that fell in tufts over his face and if it weren’t for the sadness etched all over his features, Lyall would have laughed in his face. Hope would be rolling in her grave if she saw the state of Remus’s hair.

Lyall got out some leftover food and they ate lunch together. Remus gripped his silverware with slightly shaky hands and he told Lyall about how he now stocked records and a record store for a living. Lyall asked him about what his new favorite album was and Remus talked about some band called The Cure.

He visited three more times that week and disappeared for five months after that. When he visited again, he had his hair cut short but still looked rather shocking with a metal ring lopping around his nose. Lyall asked what it was and Remus said it was a nose ring. He visited every Tuesday for a month before disappearing for two months and returning with another ring around his lip.

Every time Remus came to visit, he always seemed terribly sad or angry. Lyall remembered the early transformation and how painful it was hearing Remus tear himself apart and lose control of himself. But back then it had only been for one night every month. Now, it seemed Remus did it every single day.

Remus went through many phases, which Lyall, unfortunately, had to witness. There was a point in time when Remus had dyed his hair a stark raven colour that reminded Lyall of James Potter’s messy black mane and Sirius’s long dark silky locks, that had been an all-time low for Remus. He always wore jackets, whether they be denim or blazars, and would refuse to take them off. Lyall thought it was because of his scars, but he knew that didn’t make much sense. Lyall knew about Remus’s lycanthropy.

Sometime in the mid 80’s, Lyall had gotten Remus to take his jacket off during an exceptionally hot summer and realized why Remus had been so adamant about covering up. On his arm lay thin purple scars in neat even rows. Lyall knew what those meant. He also saw red little dots lined sporadically on Remus’s arm. Lyall asked Remus if had been bitten by a spider or something and Remus had turned an ugly shade of red. Remus didn’t answer and instead made up an excuse for why he needed to leave. He didn’t visit Lyall for three-is years after that.

***

In 1989, Remus showed up on Lyall’s doorstep on December 31st. He had taken the silver rings on his nose and lip out and his hair was his natural colour and a reasonable length (Hope would still think it was too long if she were alive). He brought over a bottle of champagne and handed it to his father, saying it was a New Year Even’s gift. But when Lyall poured him a glass, Remus stuck his hand out and waved dismissively. He explained that he was going to give drinking up, that it was his new year’s resolution and that really he gave Lyall the champagne because he knew if he didn’t give it away to somebody that he’d drink the entire thing tonight and never get around quitting. That led to Lyall asking why Remus was giving drinking up, which led to one of the toughest conversations he’d have with Remus.

“I haven’t been wise with my decision-making lately… well for years, really.” 

“What do you mean?” Lyall asked.

Remus gave him a sheepish smile. “I was very… hurt… for a very long time”, he started, his voice dripping with regret and guilt. “I did lots of things to stop hurting, lots of things I’m paying for now”. 

He began to roll up his sleeves, showing Lyall his scarred arms. He pointed to the purple dots on his arms that looked like constellations, the dots Lyall thought were spider bites, and sighed. 

“It’s from drugs. You know about drugs, the packs are filled with drugs”. Remus rolled his sleeve back down, waiting for Lyall’s reaction.

“Oh”, was all he said. “H-how are they… why are they dots?”

Remus gave his father a confused look before laughing. “I forget how Pureblooded you are!”, he said inbetween laughs, even though Lyall didn’t think this was a laughing matter. 

Remus collected himself and took on a somber look again. “There are muggle drugs that you inject through needles straight into your bloodstream. It… it makes it feel better”, Remus said embarrassed. 

“I’ve done a lot of drugs since leaving Hogwarts. At first, it was just for fun, everybody smokes a spliff or does a few lines at a party, but then it was to take the edge off stressful work stuff and sometimes even the pain from the transformations. And somewhere after finding out that Sirius was the traitor it just became a regular part of my life. I tried getting clean so many times. Usually, after getting a few days clean, I’d come to visit you, just to remind myself why I was doing it… but I’d always fail. Always”, he said with self-disgust.

“Remus, I--”, Lyall started but didn’t know how to finish. What he wanted to do was hug his son, embrace him and tell him everything would be alright, but he couldn’t. He didn’t want to scare Remus off like that.

Remus continued on explaining how he’d been off heroin for two whole months now when he decided to clean out his fridge for the new year and how he found a bottle of champagne he didn’t remember buying. He apparated to pawn it off to Lyall under the disguise of a gift.

“I don’t have a problem with drinking per se, but whenever I drink, I think about getting high again”, he explained.

Lyall put the bottle away and talked to Remus for another hour about unimportant things. He waited for Remus to leave before crashing on his red armchair and covering his face in his hands. He should have known, should have seen the signs. Lyall Lupin sometimes felt like the world’s worst father.

***

When Albus Dumbledore contacted Lyall Lupin and asked if Lyall could host Remus and Sirius (who was apparently innocent and did _not_ kill Peter Pettigrew nor twelve innocent muggles) for a brief period before other accommodations were made, Lyall jumped at the opportunity. He stupidly hoped that it would mend whatever relationship he and Remus had. He thought it might redeem him as a father.

Sirius was a charming man. He had a posh London accent, similar to Lyall’s except posher, almost like he had lessons on how to speak. Sirius helped around the house, he never let Lyall lift a finger. He told humorous stories about a time before Azkaban, which entertained Lyall very much. Sometimes he told stories about shenanigans he’d gotton up to with his mates back at school, which would always leave Remus blushing. 

One cozy evening, Sirius boisterously told a story he called the ‘Great Express Explosion of 1973’ and Lyall remembered how the Trolley lady had escorted Remus, Sirius, and two other boys out the Hogwarts Express that year.

“So James got the bright idea to transfigure a Cauldron Cake into a Quaffle, and of course we were going to throw it around the cart. Remus was trying to read this god-awful muggle book and generally ignore us while Peter was busy squealing every single time James and I caught the ball”.

“I forgot he used to do that”, Remus said with a faint smile that turned sour. “I think I hit him once or twice for it”.

“Oh I know you did, Moony. I remember once you miscalculated your strength a bit and he had bruises for a few days. Ha! It’s what he gets, the little rat”. They both exchanged melancholic looks before Sirius piped back up again. “Anyways, after we accidentally messed our aim up a few times and the Quaffle accidentally hit Remus one too many times, Remus thought it would be smart to explode the Quaffle! It just so happened that the Trolley lady was coming around the same time he took his wand out and she got front row tickets to the firework show! And that’s how Remus started his fourth-year with a week’s worth of detentions already lined up for him!”

Once he took a shower and combed out his long, matted, hair, he was also a handsome man. He had a shifty look in his eyes, like he didn’t just quite trust anybody, but other than that he was a perfectly good-looking man. He had a few more wrinkles from when Lyall last saw him, speeding around on his motorbike, but considering the man had spent twelve years in prison and aged sixteen, he was doing very well in the looks department. Lyall could understand why Remus had fallen for Sirius.

There was one thing Lyall had noticed about Remus and Sirius; they didn’t look at each other with love-struck eyes anymore. Their eyes were filled with a slew of emotions when they glanced at each other; relife, pain, regret, remorse, guilt, and most of the time, platonic love. But they were never lovestruck anymore. Sometimes Lyall heard them through the thin walls of the cottage, having late-night conversations in pained hushed tones. There was simply too much both had experienced since they were eighteen for things to ever return back to the way they were. Lyall didn’t know what exactly had happened, but he remembered what Mary McDonald told him all those years back when she was telling him off on the phone. _“All it was was lies, sabotage, and guilt.”_

***

Sirius left after a few months. Remus had explained in very vague detail that Sirius was going somewhere he would be safer and Lyall didn’t question it. He gave Sirius a fatherly hug the night he was to leave and told him to send letters if he could.

Remus left shortly after that. 

“It’s too dangerous for me to stay here”, he said and Lyall couldn’t help but be reminded of the first time he left. 

“Where are you going?” Lyall asked worriedly. He didn’t want to lose Remus again, not like the first time.

“I’ll be safe. I’ll write you”, Remus said firmly and Lyall tried to believe him. Remus gave Lyall a sad smile that showcased his wrinkles. Sometimes Lyall forgot that Remus wasn’t eighteen anymore, hopping on motorbikes while enveloped in young-love. He was thirty-five years old and perfectly capable of making his own decisions. “And visit too, when I can”.

“Alright”, Lyall said and Remus left. 

***

Remus visited sparsely. He usually wrote a letter home once every month that went something along the lines of ‘I’m alive, can’t write much, very dangerous’ and visited twice in 1996. The first time he visited they talked about fishing, a pastime Lyall had recently taken up in his old age. Remus looked tired and frail, but when did he not? The second time Remus visited, he was silent and stoic. He made Lyall diner and deadpanned about how much he hated the summertime. Lyall made the mistake of asking how Sirius was and Remus just sighed.

“He’s dead”, Remus said in the same deadpan, emotionless.

“What?” 

“He’s dead”, Remus repeated but this time Lyall recognized the grievance in his voice. He wasn’t emotionless, he was melancholic.

They dropped the subject.

***

Things got crazy in 1997. People were turning up dead left and right and Lyall knew half of the Ministry was under the Imperius curse or a Death Eater themselves. He was quick to resign and quick to put protective charms around his home. Lyall knew that Remus was involved in dangerous things and that the Welsh cottage would be one of the places they’d first visit if somebody was looking for him. 

It was also 1997 that a small brown owl scratched at his window incessantly until Lyall got off from his red armchair where he’d been rotting away to open up the window. The owl flew in and Lyall unstrapped the letter tied to its leg. He recognized the handwriting immediately.

_Hi Dad,_

_Are you free on the twenty-sixth of July? I’m getting married and if it’s not too much of a hassle I’d like it if you could attend._

_Remus J Lupin_

Married? Remus John Lupin was getting married? Lyall reread the letter over and over again, not believing his eyes. He considered owling a friend who specializes in spells that could track handwriting to their owners, just to make sure the letter was actually sent from Remus.

But who could fake that nonchalant, not quite asking but not quite _not_ asking, type of request that Remus had always felt comfortable using? Even when asking if his own father could attend his marriage, Remus was still obnoxiously shy about it. Had his thirty-seven years of life truly treated him that badly? Had he really been that shunned, that torn down, that his confidence in himself was so low that he couldn’t even ask his father to attend his wedding without adding, ‘if it’s not too much of a hassle’? 

Maybe he had. Remus Lupin was a queer Werewolf drug addict. At least this time only two of it was Lyall’s fault.

***

Lyall Lupin was shocked to find that Remus was the groom, and the _only_ groom. He sat in the front pew with about ten others (and half of them had red hair) for the ceremony, watching as Remus stood shifting at his feet and staring at the pink-haired bride in awe as she floated down the aisle. She looked a good deal younger than Remus, although she had that same jaded look in her eyes and twitching hands that he had. He learned from the pamphlet given at the beginning of the ceremony that her name was Nymphadora Tonks.

It was a small ceremony and everyone seemed to know everyone, except for Lyall. They gave him odd looks as the wizard in long dark robes read off vows. Lyall chose to ignore them. He was here for Remus and Remus only.

During the celebration afterward, a short plump woman with frizzy red hair and tacky dress robes wobbled up to Lyall and gave him a questioning look. 

“Hello”, she started breezily, although Lyall could hear a hint of reservation in her voice. “I’m Molly, Molly Weasly”. She stuck her hand out for him to shake it.

“Hello”, he said while taking her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you”.

She frowned at him. “Have you got a name?” she asked.

“Lyall Lupin”.

Her eyes got wide and her mouth dropped a bit. “Are you his…”

“Father”.

“Yes, right”, she said, nodding her head feverishly. She pulled a weird face. “Well, it’s nice to meet you”, she said in a sickeningly sweet voice and if Lyall was just a smidge stupider, he might have believed she was genuine. He knew what she was thinking as she pulled him in for a hug before returning back to the clan of redheads. _Remus has a father?_

Lyall watched from a distance as one of the red-head boys who seemed to be in his mid to late twenties threw the bride over their shoulder and spun her around. Another red-head with a feathered earring laughed wildly and said something to Remus. Lyall waited until the two boys were done talking to the newlyweds before making eye-contact with Remus and nodding his head. Remus slipped away from the red-heads and his wife to make his way over.

“Hi”, Lyall said to Remus.

“Hi… I’m glad you could make it”, Remus mumbled. 

“I’m your father, Remus. I reckon it’s the least I could do…” he paused for a minute, thinking about what he should say next. He remembered when Remus was fifteen and they were talking about Lily Evans that one night in the living room and how Lyall struggled to string together a proper sentence, not quite knowing his son. He remembered how Remus spent all of 1982 trying to hide from Lyall and Remus’s sporadic visits home and how they’d talk about everything that didn’t matter. The few months Remus and Sirius had lived in the cottage had helped bridge some of the gap that had always been wedged between them, but sometimes Lyall still felt like Remus was fifteen.

“I’m going to go now, I know when I’m not wanted… but you should visit sometime… and bring the wife too”, Lyall said.

Remus smiled and nodded. “I will”.

***

Nymphadora Tonks was a bubbly and cheerful woman, if not a bit clumsy; almost everything Remus was not. She had piercings on each of her ears, starting from her lobe to the top of her cartilage, and a small stud embedded in her impish nose. Her bubblegum pink from the wedding was a stark jet black today and Lyall swore she looked a bit like Sirius. She acted a bit like him too, loud and charming, but she was her own. Her kindness and animated personality set her apart from Remus’s ex-lover. During the time she was over for tea, she had talked enough for both Remus and Lyall, broken a teacup, and got Lyall laughing more than he could count on one hand.

“So... er… how did you two get together?” Lyall asked once he felt comfortable enough with the two of them. Remus and Nymp-- _Tonks_ \-- shared a humorous look and chuckled a bit.

“Work”, Tonks answered breezily. Tonks had mentioned that she was an Auror and Remus was certainly no Auror, so Lyall assumed she meant Remus’s other line of work, the dangerous work that killed half of Mary McDonald’s friends. So she was mixed up in all of that as well…

“We got paired up a lot”, Remus continued, setting down his teacup. “And things sort of just happened”.

Tonks rolled her eyes and tugged at the hem of her loose tee-shirt that had a band logo on it. Lyall didn’t know who the Smashing Pumpkins were and he couldn’t tell by their name if they were wizard or muggle. Remus would probably know, though.

“That’s the short story, Mr.Lupin”, she said, using his last name even though he had told her multiple times to just call him Lyall. “What really went down was months and months of your son being an absolute twat and avoiding his feelings by volunteering for absolutely horrible missions”.

Remus blushed a bit. “Well, I like to believe I wasn’t being a twat the _entire_ time. There were times I was good. Like when I took you out for drinks after that one mission when we stalked the Malfoys or the time we stayed up all night listening to The Cure and Molly came down to tell us to turn off ‘all that din’.”

Tonks bursted out in laughter, smiling widely. “Oh yes, I do remember that night. I still shake thinking about how badly she told us off”.

“Oh Merlin, she was so mad that night. Said we might corrupt her kids with that god-awful music as if her children weren’t already”, Remus said fondly. “We didn’t learn our lesson, though. The next night you put on Oasis and we danced to ‘Wonderwall’ of all songs. And then Sirius came into the room and-”, he cut himself, his eyes growing wide and pained. Lyall noticed that Tonks’s also grew wide, and she looked down almost like she was guilty. She got that same look that Remus always had, the jaded one that meant she’d seen and done too much.

“And he said we were diseased with lovesickness”, Tonks finally said sadly. It was then that Lyall realized there was no best man at his son’s wedding. Remus slipped his hand in between Tonks’s and gave her a small smile. 

“Well we had to be diseased with something if we were dancing to ‘Wonderwall’”, he said and they both started cracking up laughing, leaving Lyall behind. But Lyall didn’t mind. For the first time since he leaped onto that motorbike when he was eighteen, fulled and blinded by the drug of young love, Remus finally seemed to be happy.

***

A few months later, Lyall was woken in the night by frantic knocks on the door. He hurried over, wand in hand just in case someone with sinister intention was on the other side. Much to his shock, a pink-haired woman with dark smeared eye makeup and a hitched breath stood on the other side. He recognized her as his daughter in law and let her in immediately.

“Is Remus here?” Tonks asked, her voice shaking like her jittering hands.

Lyall felt his heart drop. “No. He’s not here. Why? Did he-”

“He left. He packed his stuff and left”, Tonks choked.

Lyall could have laughed in nostalgia. Remus running. That was certainly not a new one. He put on the kettle and listened to his daughter-in-law give him the rundown of what happened. She nearly dropped her cup multiple times and Lyall couldn’t tell if it was due to her natural clumsiness or if it was because of her shaking hands that didn’t seem to calm.

“I’m pregnant”, she said, giving Lyall and side eye, waiting for his reaction. Lyall remained stoic like he did for most of his life. 

“Oh”, he said.

Tonks nodded and continued on. “And he freaked out. He started to…”, she trailed off, her eyes blinking furiously and her hands swatting at them. Lyall had half the decency to pull out a handkerchief and offer it to her as she dried her tears away. “Sorry, I don’t want to burden you with this. You need your sleep”.

She got up from the couch and cleaned the handkerchief with a quick spell before handing it back to Lyall. She gave him a tight, sad smile, and headed towards the doorway. “Thank you”, she said, even though Lyall hadn’t really done anything. 

“Travel safely”, he told her. She nodded at him and was half out the door when he added, “Oh and Tonks”.

She looked back at him. 

“Just know”, Lyall started with what he hoped was a comforting smile. “He always comes back”.

***

Remus Lupin died on the 2nd of May in 1998 along with many others, including his wife. He left behind one son, Edward Remus Lupin, who Lyall found out was named after his daughter-in-law’s late muggle-born father and did not inherit his father’s lycanthropy but did inherit his mother’s metamorphing powers. Lyall hadn’t even known that Tonks was a metamorphosis. He wished he did.

Edward, who everyone called Teddy, was taken in by his grandmother Andromeda Tonks. Lyall met her once shortly after the battle and she let him hold Teddy. He found out then that she was Sirius’s cousin and that Tonks was therefore also Sirius’s cousin and suddenly their resemblance in looks and mannerisms made much more sense.

Lyall couldn’t believe he was a grandfather. He couldn’t believe that the four-year-old boy crying on his blood-stained bed with his leg torn half-open would ever grow up to be the man he was. He couldn’t believe that the sixteen year-old boy that stumbled home after a week-long disappearance with tattered jeans and bruises that had no correlation to the moon, who openly admitted to wanting to be dead, could have lived as long as he did. He couldn’t believe that the shell of a man with lip and nose piercings and shaky hands from withdraws, frail and emaciated, _didn’t_ drop dead. He couldn’t believe any of it, but more importantly, he couldn’t believe that his son, his only son, was dead.

Lyall Lupin lived a life plagued with guilt, remorse, and regret. When he fell ill a year after his son’s untimely death, he didn’t want to get better. He laid on his red armchair and relished in his shallow breathing and droopy eyes. He was ready for death to greet him and pull him into a world of darkness. Or maybe he’d walk into light and be welcomed with familiar smiles.

Lyall Lupin closed his eyes for the last time and when he opened them he was met with two familiar smiles, one that he fell in love with and the other he had never known how to love, and suddenly everything felt okay again.

**Author's Note:**

> im aware this fic probably won't get many hits, seeing as it's not centered around a ship, but it was extremely rewarding to write. this is the best thing I've ever written and I'm actually proud of it-- which says a lot because my self-confidence is on the floor. so to the few souls who are reading this, thank you very much for sticking along. i feel as if the father-son relationship between remus and lyall aren't touched apon much. Rowling said that remus's parents loved him very much, but lyall felt awfully guilty about it, never forgave himself, and hide the truth about the attack from remus for years. I think that might have put a strain to their relationship, even if they loved each other very much. it's also canon that remus doesn't know how to show his emotions and runs from his problems a lot, and I figured that might have been a habit he developed young. i also figured that with remus 'not wanting to burden his father' during his lost years seemed suspicious if they had a good relationship, hence this fic was born. you can love someone very much without knowing how to show it. sometimes, it's because you love that person that you can't stand to be around them. love isn't a one-demenionsal feeling or emotion-- there are many surfaces to it. it's much more complex than what we give it credit for.
> 
> i really liked writing this, I pumped it out in about four days, so please excuse any errors.
> 
> also, some clarification on the events. when remus mentions sirius when he's sixteen, he's talking about the prank. And the bit about remus fancying lily came from an interview rowling did when she was asked if lily had any previous relationships (or if she liked anybody before james or something like that). she answered that lupin was quite fond of lily, but that he never competed with james. so I thought it would be a fun tibit to add in here. Oh and the reason Tonks looks guilty after remus mentions sirius is because she blamed herself for his death (it said so in the books). also yes, I put wolfstar and remadora in the same timeline. like I said before, love has many surfaces to it. i belive you can have multiple true loves and you can love somebody without being _in_ love with them. so yeah....
> 
> hope you all enjoyed! thank you for reading


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